Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1887-12-04

rising n falling, In deep, neSVy SNpS'
At intervals she ground her teeth savageiy'
Beads of perspiration stood thickly on hei
forehead. Her elinched hands rose and
fell slowly from time to time on her lap.
Was she in the agony Of q dream? or was
she spiritually conscious of something hid
den in the room?
The doubt involved in that last question
was uncomfortable. Agnes determined to
rouse the servants who kept watch IN the
hotel at night.
The bell handle was fixed to the wall on
the side of the bed by which the table
stood.
She raised herself from the crouching
position she had assumed in looking close
at the countess, and, turning toward the
other side Of the bed, stretched out her
band to the bell. At the same instant she
stopped and looked upward. Her hand
fell helplessly at her side. Sac s~huddered,
and sank back on the pillow.
What had she seen?
She had seen another intruder in her
room.
Midway between her and the ceiling
there lowered a human head-severed at
the neck, like a head struck from the boiy
by the guillotine.
Nothing visible, nothing audible, had
given her warning of its appearance.
Silently and suddenly, the head had taken
its place above her. No supernatural
| change had passed over the room, or was
peIceptible in il now. The dumbly tor
tured figure in the chair; the broad window
opposite the foot of the bed, with the black
night beyond it; the candle burning on
the table-these, and all other objects in
the room, remained unaltered. One object
more, unutterably hOrrid, had been added
to the rest. That was the only change
no more, no less.
By the yellow candle light she saw TIE
head distinctly no Eering in mid air above
her. She looked at it steadfastly, spell
bound by the terror that held her.
The flesh of the face was gone. The
shriyeled skin was darkeDed in hue, like
the skin of an Egyptian mummy-except
at the neck. There it was Of a lighter
color; there it showed spots and splashes OF
the hue of that brown spot on
the ceiling, which the child's
%fanciful terror had distorted into the like
ness Of a spot of blood. Thin remains Of a
discolored mustache and whiskcrs, hang.
ing over the upper lip, and over the hol-
lows where the cheeks had once been, made
the head Just recognizable as the head Of
a mau. OSer all the features death and
time had done their obliterating work.
The eyelids were closed. The hair on the
skull, discolored like the hair on the face,
had been burned away in places. The
blush lips, parted in u fixed grin, showed
the double row of teeth. BY slow degrees
the lowering head perfectly still when
she first saw it, began to descend toward
Agnes as she lay beneath. By slow degrees
that strange, doubly blended odor which
the commissioners had discovered in
the vaults CT the old palace-which had
sickened Francis Westwick in the bed
chamber of the new hotel-spread its fetid
exhalatiops over the room. Downward
aud downward the hideous ~apparition
made its slow progress, until it stopped
close over AgneS-stopped and turned
slowly, so that the face of il confronted the
upturned face of the woman in the chair.
After that there anne o pause. Then q
momentary animation disturbed the rigid
repose of the dead face. The closed eyes
lids opened slowly. The eyes revealed
themselves, bright with the CLASSY film of
death, and fixed their dreadful look on the
woman in the chair.
Agnes saw that look; saw the reclining
IN rise, as if in obedience 10 some
dread command-and saw no more.
Her next conscious impression was OF
the sunlight pouring in at the window; of
the friendly presence of Lady Montbarry
at the bedside, aud of the children's won
dering faces peeping in at the door.